Game Reviews – The Great Arctic Hunter
A game that focuses on traditional hunting skills in Nunavut.
Posted in: Week 05: Game-Based Learning
ETEC 522 – Sept. 2011
Ventures in Learning Technologies – Sept. 2011
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Deb Kim 1:35 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I don’t know if students would consider this game to be fun. I think it’s very educational because it has information on animals, places where these animals live, and hunting tools necessary for hunting the animals. But compared to the SPENT game that I played ealier, it wasn’t as interesting as the title and I got bored after selecting and playing for all animals. Moreover, it looked less professional as a game than the SPENT game.
Deb
Everton Walker 6:29 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Deb,
How would you use this game to help students? Do you think boys would find this game fascinating?
Everton
mcquaid 10:08 am on October 8, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This game was, I think, the first that I tried out at the beginning of the week. It appealed to me most as it seemed as if it could be useful to me in my teaching, and I liked the graphic design in the thumbnail.
To make my decision, I will separate all of my thoughts into pros and cons – to see how they balance out.
Pros:
-This game deals with Canadian content – the northern hunting culture / practices, sounds (especially traditional music), northern animals, clothing, traditions, locations – something that is not often found in educational games, due to the small market.
-The game is free, requires no download, and requires little computing power.
-The game does not take long to play.
-The game is easy to figure out how to play on your own.
-The game has videos which hint at what choices you should make for each hunt (which I missed altogether the first time I played).
-Gore in the videos is left out.
-The graphics, though not very detailed, do have a bit of style to them, and the backgrounds have motion when your mouse moves.
-Wrong choices in the game are quick and easy to bounce back from – there is almost no frustration.
Cons:
-Although the game covers many different cultural / natural topics, none of them are covered very deeply or meaningfully.
-All in-game choices can be made without ANY thought or punishment for wrong answers. A player can simply click random choices and advance without reading or learning ANYTHING. Much of the “extra” information (clickable areas on an animal post-hunt) can be completely ignored, requiring no interaction at all.
-Graphics are dated, and not very engaging.
-The helpful, real-life videos are very easy to miss.
-The end-of-game reward is appropriate culturally, but not very rewarding.
-It can go by much too fast.
-There is little feedback from the game, particularly in the lines of making mistakes – nothing is learned from them.
Overall, as an investor or analyst, I can’t get behind this game. It has its merits, particularly the subject choice and possible connections to outcomes in Canadian schools (what an empty and semi-profitable niche!), and the ease of use. I cannot get over how easy it is to skim through, though, and how little you actually have to learn. As an educational game, it is not very educational or fun. The only way I could see me using this was as something to share with my students. I could use it on something like a SMART Board in my classroom and fill in the game’s gaps with discussion – asking children why they make the choices they do, and, if they fail, why the choices may not have been good. With my live augmentation, it may prove a little useful someday. It would be more useful to more people, however, if an instructor wasn’t needed.